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Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

While one of two reasons should be enough for us to pay attention to our mobile marketing, here are 32 reasons to have a mobile marketing strategy: 1. In 2014, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage 2. Adults spend more time on mobile media than they do on newspapers and magazines combined 3. 91% of adults have their mobile phone within arm’s reach 24/7 4. 81% of U.S. cell users will have smartphones by 2015 5. 75% of mobile users use their mobile device for shopping 6. The global mobile market will grow from $3.4 billion in 2010, to $22 billion in 2016 7. Close to a billion smartphones were sold in 2013 8. 53% of American consumers use their smartphones to access search engines at least once a day 9. Four out of five consumers use smartphones to shop 10. Over 75% of mobile users respond…

Facebook is late to the hashtag game, but with 1.15 billion users, it really doesn’t matter. Use the hashtag effectively and you can harness its power to grow your brand or further connect your message with your target audience. This infographic from PiJnz Tips for using hastags Don’t overdo hastags – use them sparingly and not in every post. Hashtags must be all one word (no spaces). Capitalization doesn’t matter. Before you use a hashtag, do research and ensure that it will work. Encourage users to make their posts public to increase reach. What has been your experience with hashtags?

In ministry, as in business, the day and time of your posts matter. A good social media strategy is critical. Take a look a this infographic. There are a lot of implications for your church and ministry website strategy. What statistic do you find most surprising?

Messaging is critical in any marketing campaign. The wrong message to the wrong audience and all you your effort is a miss. No organization has only one audience. Even if your organization has the most homogeneous target audience, say retired male teachers, it might be at different levels of engagement with the organization: some have never heard of it; some have just been exposed to your services; others are members; and you might even have a volunteer force that helps you fulfill your mission. Since budgets are always tight, the temptation is to create materials (brochures, mailers, email blasts, visuals) that communicate to the entire target audience. Unfortunately that seldom works. What to do then? Identify your stakeholders. Every marketing campaign my company puts together involves a strategic session where we identify the target audience(s) and their level of engagement or commitment. Know who they are, their motivations, and the…

Successful marketing campaigns sell a lot of product, or move people into action. While messaging and graphics are all over the spectrum from amusing to powerful, these campaigns usually cover the four basic foundations for success. They trust. If the consumer doesn’t trust the brand or the fact that the company can deliver on its promise, the campaign will fail. They respect. Guilt and shame don’t compel people into action. Treat your audience with respect and they will respond. Talk down to them and they will ignore you. They are relevant. Even the right message to the right people at the wrong time will not bring results. Make sure you answer the bottom line question we all ask when faced with an ad: “Why should I bother?” They compel. Make the case for you. Even after you have covered the “why should I bother?” question, you still have another important…

In marketing, as in life, just because it’s new and popular, it does not mean you should do it. One of the latest trends in consumer marketing has been the use of QR Codes (short for Quick Response Code). The two-dimensional matrix was first created by the automotive industry but has now become popular with marketers. But even a great tool in the wrong application is too often ineffective. These codes are effective because they can hold a lot of information and are able to directly link smartphones to mobile-friendly websites where consumers can interact with a product or brand in a media and commerce-rich environment. My company, The A Group, has been successfully using QR Codes in marketing campaigns for a long time. While I am an early adopter of tools that might give our clients a better chance to communicate with their audience, I’m careful not to do…

I have lived with an assumption for quite some time that I’m currently questioning. In my mind, digital natives (those who grew up with the internet, mp3 players and smart phones) as opposed to digital immigrants (those of us who had to learn to use such technology) were some of the best candidates to head an organization’s social media strategy. Maybe that’s not so. In the past week I’ve had three different encounters with young professionals who were having a difficult time incorporating social media into their organization’s marketing strategy. And to make things even more interesting, all three of them were Facebook and Twitter users. I was perplexed by their lack of confidence in the media they seemingly knew so well. What I quickly realized from my conversation with my young friends is that while they have been using Facebook, Twitter and even blogging as a personal and social…

Churches cannot grow strong using a side-door strategy. Side doors are everything else a church does besides teaching the gospel and helping people grow in their faith. Somehow along the way, church leaders have decided that music concerts, recreation programs, cafeterias, schools, bookstores and even quilting groups were church-worthy pursuits and a proliferation of side-door ministries began to show up in large churches. At the end of the day, none of them, I’m convinced, can grow and keep a church healthy. If the world of marketing, we call this problem, line extension, or the adding of products and services to a brand until it’s diluted and ineffective. A while back I visited a church that reminded me of the dangers of line extension. What started as an outreach ministry of the church years ago, suddenly began to take a life of its own and became a huge resource and energy…

I spent Sunday morning with my friends at the Church on The Eastern Shore in Fairhope, Alabama, a very eclectic artist community near Mobile. I rejoiced with them as hundreds of new faces visited the church on the opening Sunday of their new teaching series. That’s a part of my job that gives me great satisfaction: watching God bless an entire team’s effort. COTE’s story is one that I have seen happen time and time again, but it never grows old. Here’s what I have seen in churches like COTES that succeed in reaching their community for the gospel. They learn. Growing churches are learning organizations. They are always asking “how can we be better?” They invest resources and in training and helping their staff and volunteers grow. I’m always humbled when I’m asked to consult with a church and help them to stretch beyond where they’ve been. They have…

First the news, then the music industry, now advertising: the digital revolution is bringing down Madison Avenue like no other force has in the history of the Ad Agency. Some estimate that over 160,000 people have lost their jobs in the advertising industry in the past 2 years. I don’t think that’s the recession’s fault. Not completely anyway. The slow down in the economy just accelerated the demise of the old advertising agency model, but the new ad world looks vastly different than the bloated budgets of the 30-second spot and national media buys. Here’s what I see happening: National spots will fade into individually customized pitch. Interestingly, I sent out a tweet this past weekend that showed my displeasure with the Audi/Jaguar/Porsche dealership in Nashville: A few hours later, I heard from a dealership. It wasn’t from the Audi/Jaguar/Porsche but from the local Cadillac twitter account, Crestgroup: I’m quite…